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I recently read a book written by two successful IT entrepreneurs. “Rework” is their advice on the simple and best ways to be successful in business. It covers a long list of topics including how to deal with competitors, how to promote your business, how to hire, organisational culture and productivity. The one 2-page chapter that I found particularly interesting however, was titled “Meetings are toxic”.

Could it be that meetings are an enemy of productivity? But hasn’t the business trend been towards collaboration and bringing a team together? Aren’t meetings a crucial part of this? Fried and Heinemeier Hansson site a number of reasons for why they believe meetings are toxic and a key enemy to productivity. Some of their points include:

Meetings are usually about abstract concepts, not real things

They convey very small amounts of information per minute. Efficiency isn’t their friend

They tend to go off subject easily

They require preparation time that most productive people don’t have time for

Meetings procreate – one leads to another and another.

They also discuss the fact that meetings seem to take more time than they necessarily need to. Unfortunately, Outlook doesn’t allow us to schedule 10 minute meetings, so inevitably we end up blocking out half an hour. And what is the true cost to a business? A one hour meeting involving a team of 13 people is costing a business a fortune! That is no longer a one-hour meeting; as Fried and Heinemeier Hansson point out, it is a 13 hour meeting. To have that meeting the business has traded 13 hours of productive time for one hour of meeting time.

This led me to ask myself some questions: Are the meetings we have each week necessary? If they pull 5 people away from their work for an hour, are they delivering back 5-hours worth of productivity? Fried and Heinemeier Hansson end with a couple of pieces of advice which I believe would make all meetings more effective; 1) Set a timer. When the meeting is over, it’s over; 2) Invite as few people as possible; 3) Have a clear agenda. I don’t think it is a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water, but perhaps it’s worth considering next time whether that meeting is really necessary before you leap in and suck up hours of potentially productive time.

I read an interesting article from Genos founder Ben Palmer last week titled “The Me Factor” recently published in the Australian magazine, HR Monthly. It discussed the emerging trend of engagement not just being a factor relevant at the organisational level anymore, but something that needs to be looked at , at an individual level as well. With the war on talent heating up again, Palmer states that “employee engagement is back on the top priority list of many organisations”.

Recent research into the individual determinants of workplace motivation by Palmer and his team uncovered some interesting findings. Specifically, 24% of employees surveyed over a range of organisations reported that they were unmotivated by a fast-paced work environment with tight deadlines; 37% were neither motivated nor unmotivated by this; and yet 39% very highly motivated by it. Along the same lines, 43% were unmotivated by a technical specialist as a manager, yet 18% were highly motivated by this. Such figures clearly demonstrate differences in individual motivational needs.

So how can we continue to drive employee engagement? Is the traditional group surveying followed by large-scale initiatives still paying the same dividends? Or is it as simple as taking the time to sit down person to person and talk about what it is that motivates us? It comes as no surprise to hear that we all have different things that excite and drive as at work. Is now the time to concentrate more on the “me” in each employee?

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